Fitness Milestone

At 36, I've worn the same pant size since college, and, thanks to a fairly active lifestyle and good genetics, I haven't needed to work very hard to stay that size. But nature finally caught up last summer and I noticed my waistbands getting tighter. I never actually bought a larger size, but during the fall I did buy a couple of pairs of pants with an expandable waistband. Cheating? Maybe.

I made a resolution at the beginning of the new year to finally incorporate regular exercise into my daily routine, and began doing situps and pushups every day. Four months later, at my annual physical, I was happy to find my blood pressure at the lowest I can remember (112/52) but very shocked to find my cholesterol level in the 230s (with a bad LDL/HDL ratio). It has always been in the mid-100s. My doctor put me on Niacin for the time being and we will follow up soon to re-check the level. In the meantime, I resolved to improve my diet and incorporate some aerobic exercise.

Shortly after that checkup, Jake came into our lives, and he has been an angel. Every night since April, I have progressively gone from walking to jogging to running with that dog for thirty minutes.

Wanting to find an objective way to measure my physical fitness progress, I went Googling around today. Surprise, surprise, surprise. The USMC has posted a helpful reference to the physical fitness and swimming requirements for Marine Corps courses. Even better, it lays out the point scoring system and provides rankings by age. Perfect.

So tonight I administered my first USMC-style PFT. I managed a three-mile run in 21:35, 39 situps in 2 minutes, and 4 pull-ups. Scoring against that chart, I passed each component of the test and came up with 138 total points, putting me in the 3rd Class for my age (not great, but better than "Unsatisfactory").

Not bad for a civilian. Having an objective milestone is important, and up to this point I have merely been working on consistent exercise. Now I can work on improving that score.